The World Stops
by Reina de Fuego
Summary: She smiles and it's like the world stops. His heart goes silent, the blood stops rushing to his brain and everything just ... stops. He's engaged, and though they don't wear the rings, he doesn't care. He's engaged to the most beautiful woman on the planet, and she's never going to leave him. Scarecrow/Fox. May be expanded further later on.


**D/C**: I do not own Matthew Reilly.  
><strong>AN**: I'm not sure why I started writing this, maybe as a way to get some more insight into Maya Collins - my OC from Welcome To Hell. I just started typing. This is AU to Scarecrow & Scarecrow AOT in that Fox didn't die, just for the hell of it - because he deserves a happy ending, and I happen to like happy endings as long as they involve blood and guts. I don't know if this will get further, I may finish it off at home and drag it out, but for the moment, this is it.

**The World Stops**

She smiles and it's like the world stops. His heart goes silent, the blood stops rushing to his brain and everything just ... stops.

Libby laughs and turns to face him, something the woman next to her has said must have been funny because she never laughs like that. Not a genuine 'oh my god, are you serious?' laugh like she is now. Shane smiles back, giving a half-wave. The woman next to Gant looks over her shoulder, gives him the finger and grabs her bottle of brew. In Collins speak, that's 'I've missed you'. No one ever gives him the finger, no one dares. The rumours abound in the Corps, no one wants to mess with the guy who saved the world three times. Not once, but three. Because saving the President and stopping a nuclear holocaust makes you a badass.

His Fairy Godmotherfucker is behind him, beer in hand and giving Collins the finger back. Between the two large women, there's an unspoken bond. They both know he's theirs to protect, and they'll both die for him without question. Without him even asking, Collins hands him a beer and moves seats. She's tall, over six foot and knows it. The way she moves suggests she's been trained. The way Mother moves is like a bull in a china shop, dodging everything til she gets to her target. She may be tall and badass, but Mother has a gentle side. You've never seen Gena Newman take on a motherly role until you see her with Ralph's niece, and after that ... You can't forget what you've seen.

A six-foot-plus woman with a shaved head sitting at a table that's just two feet off the ground with her knees sticking out either side of the table, sipping invisible tea from an invisible cup in one hand, while a four year old paints her nails with sparkly pink nail polish and tries to line her eyelashes with mascara. She has a king-size bed sheet wrapped around her and tied off like a dress, while her boots occasionally release some of the mud caked to their soles and her laughing shakes loose the sand clinging to her uniform.

"When are you going to ask her?" Maya says quietly and slings her arm around Shane's neck, turning him as if they're conspiring to destroy the world. He doesn't mention the burn on her upper arm, the one that tells him that at some stage she was strapped to a chair and tortured by the CIA. The burn that says she once served in an army that he never wants to remember. The burn that says at some point in her life, she went rogue. Mother would say she can't be trusted, but Mother has seen the burn. Mother respects the fact that she was did what she did, that they all did what they had to. Mother doesn't know that at exactly twenty three minutes past one in the morning, every night without fail, Maya wakes up and grabs her kabar - waiting for them to come back and take her again.

"I already did," he smiles.  
>Collins punches him in the shoulder lightly, a gesture of hope. If she really wanted to do damage, she'd punch much harder than that. "Good on you. What'd she say?"<br>"Yankee Echo Sierra," he says, the smile stretching. He's engaged, and though they don't wear the rings, he doesn't care. He's engaged to the most beautiful woman on the planet, and she's never going to leave him. Not even if the world stops.


End file.
